Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Erin Payne. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Erin, thanks for joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken to sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?
Being a product-based business owner is most stressful around two times a year- when it’s crazy busy (pre-holiday time when everyone is in gift-giving mode and sales are at their highest) and when it’s crazy slow (over the summer when sales are few and far between). And it’s inevitable every year during both of these stressful periods I have the thought, “Maybe I should just get a regular job.” Something with normal daytime hours, a consistent paycheck, and where I wouldn’t have to take work home with me. This thought has definitely plagued me more in the last year or so as the cost of pretty much anything and everything has increased. It’s a constant battle of weighing pros and cons. After 5 years of working for myself full-time, can I really go back to working for someone else? Is being miserable at work worth it if it helps finance a more abundant personal life? Or is being happy at work worth the ongoing financial uncertainty?
To be honest, I still don’t know the answer to these questions. But I do know that whenever I’m having these thoughts, the pros of being a business owner always outweigh the cons. I have a completely flexible schedule and can take time off whenever I want. If I’m having a slow week or month, I have complete control over customer outreach or running promotions to try to capture more sales and increase my salary. Most importantly, I genuinely enjoy the work I do. Every day is a little different- some days I’m in product production, some days I’m doing computer work like website maintenance and social media promotion, some days I’m out vending at markets in my community, some days I’m a photographer, and some days I’m being interviewed for publications like this one! Monotony doesn’t exist in my job and I’m so thankful for that. I don’t know what the future holds or if I’ll ever decide the pros of a “regular” job outweigh the cons, but for now I’m happy being in control of my own destiny.
Erin, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
People always wonder how I got started making therapeutic hot/cold packs since it’s such a niche product. I honestly never imagined this would be my full-time job! I’ve always been an artsy person, even as a kid, and when it came time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I knew it had to be something creative. After seeing my high school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream freshman year, I fell in love with the costumes and went all-in pursuing a BFA in Theatrical Costume Design and Technology from The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. After graduating I worked at a local theatre for a few years but unfortunately realized that as much as I loved designing and sewing, the theatre lifestyle wasn’t a good fit for me.
Luckily I was also working retail at the time for an adorable gift shop, but I still wanted a side hustle to keep me busy once I backed out of theatre. In the fall of 2015, I decided I would try opening an Etsy shop selling flaxseed hand warmers. That way I’d still be utilizing my sewing ability and, with the holiday season coming up, I thought hand warmers would be easily marketable gifts. Turns out I was right and I sold about 20 pairs my first month in business! The owner of the store I was working at offered to buy some from me wholesale to sell in her shop, and she still sells them in her shop almost nine years later! That introduction into wholesale was life-changing. I reached out to more and more stores, and the more orders I got, the less I worked at the store. In May of 2019, I officially quit my retail job and went into business full-time. Almost 5 years later, Payne & Comfort products are now sold in over 200 stores in almost all 50 states!
Much more than just hand warmers, Payne & Comfort now offers many styles and sizes of therapeutic hot/cold packs ranging from eye pillows for headaches to breastfeeding compresses and more! I spend a lot of time curating fabrics that are more contemporary and trendy than typical rice packs. Some even have spooky elements that incorporate my love of Halloween- I even use a skull in my logo!
Aside from offering products that promote healing and self-care, I’m most proud of the charitable contributions I’ve been able to make over the years thanks to sales of “The Monthly Bean,” a hot/cold pack designed specially for aches and pains associated with menstruation. A portion of the proceeds are donated to various women-focused charities and as of December 2023, my total donations reached over $10,000! Purchasing from P&C not only supports me, it also supports the other small businesses I partner with for supplies, and allows me to continue making donations to important organizations.
Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?
Payne & Comfort can be found on multiple platforms now but it all started as an Etsy shop. Etsy is a great place for handmade businesses to start because they have a huge built-in audience. I also happen to sell a pretty niche product, so the competition is way less than it would be if I sold something like jewelry or knitwear, which are very saturated categories. The only downside to Etsy is they do charge a fee, but it’s worth it in my opinion for the exposure.
Once I got more comfortable with wholesale, I applied to Faire, an online wholesale marketplace. At the time, they were very selective in who they accepted so I was delighted when I got the onboarding email. I had 18 orders, all from new stores, within my first 2 weeks on the platform. It was and still is a game-changer for my business. Within a year and a half of selling on Faire, my business went from side hustle to full time and I’m so thankful. Faire has had some changes over the years and the fee structure isn’t what it used to be, but it still makes up the majority of my sales.
I also now have my own Shopify site, which I promote on social media and direct retail customers there rather than Etsy since the fees are less. Shopify isn’t very intuitive to set up, but if you take the time to learn it, it really is a useful seller’s platform.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
When I was just getting started with my Etsy shop, I did a lot of research looking at other hot/cold pack shops. For one thing, I didn’t want to accidentally copy someone else’s work. I also wanted to look for a gap in the market. How could I make my products unique? One thing I noticed was that a lot of the hot/cold packs on Etsy were made with similar traditional fabrics- a lot of paisley and novelty prints with kraft paper packaging. So when I sourced fabric, I looked for prints that were modern and trendy to help set my products apart. I also used a lot of spooky and Halloween-inspired fabrics since that’s an aesthetic I connect with. And while I did start with kraft paper tags I made myself, I eventually switched to professionally printed tags with a bold black and white color palette. I also try hard to make my product photography stand out by using darker backgrounds for flat-lay photos, and models with an edgy aesthetic to match the brand.
In addition to visually standing out, I put a lot of care into manufacturing my products and making sure they’re high quality. Reviews usually reflect that and I’m proud to say that if you search “hot cold pack” on Etsy, my products are on the first page of search results. All the work I did in the beginning to set my shop apart has definitely paid off and helped build the reputation I’m proud to have.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://payneandcomfort.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/payneandcomfort
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/payneandcomfort